... take care! Take care!" but this morning he
also seemed kind and gentle to them, leading a small girl back to her
haggard bony old guardian, carrying her heavy can of soup for her, or
joking with some of the old men.... "Now, uncle ... you ought to be at
the war! What have they done, leaving you? So young and so vigorous!
They'll take you yet!" and the old man, a toothless trembling
creature, clutching his hunk of bread with shaking hands, would grin
like the head of Death himself! How close to death they all seemed!
How alive were my friends, strong in the sun, compassionate but also
perhaps a little despising this poor gathering of wastrels.

The work went on; then at last the final scraps of meat and bread had
been shared, the kitchen closed its oven, we took off our overalls,
shook ourselves, and bade farewell to the scarecrows. The kitchen was
then sent home and we moved forward with the tea boiler and two
sanitars further into the forest. Our destination was a large empty
house behind the trenches. From here we were to take tea in the boiler
to certain regiments, tea with wine in it as preventative against
cholera. It was the early afternoon now, and we moved very slowly. The
heat was intense and although the trees were thick on every side of us
there seemed to be no shade nor coolness, as though the leaves had
been made of paper.

"This is a strange forest," I said. "Although there are trees there's
no shade. It burns like a furnace."

No one replied. We passed as though in a dream, meeting no one,
hearing no sound, the light dancing and flickering on our path. I
nodded on my seat. I was half asleep when we arrived at our
destination. This was the accustomed white deserted house standing in
a desolate tangled garden. There was no one there on our arrival. All
the doors were open, the sun blazing along the dusty passages. It was
inhabited, just then, I believe, by some artillery officers, but I saw
none of them. Semyonov went off to find the Colonel of the regiment to
whom we were to give tea; Marie Ivanovna and I remained in one of the
empty rooms, the only sound the buzzing flies. Every detail of that
room will remain in my heart and brain until I die. Marie Ivanovna,
looking very white and cool, with the happiness shining in her large
clear eyes, sat on an old worn sofa near the window. In the glass of
the window there were bullet holes, and beyond the window a piece of
blazing golden garden. The room was